"THE LAST ONE"

And when she does come wading back through time, what
Color will her eyes have
The wind snuffed my roadguide, all I see is one no longer there
Fall, slow and clumsy, into a ditch. Old Fenkelis
Maestro of pastry. Another one falling. Still alive. My old grandfather
In memory. The cold mirror-glass shatters.
The lindentrees no longer rustle in the city of Vilna – he goes to
				the window, the one
Who's crying that you failed to become
Prophet Vincent, stood there and gave your blessing
Sweetly smiling, farther back from the ditch
Under your caring glance, then
It was easier to fall, it was soft as a dream
In Vilna the lindens are honeyed, a moaning dog carved out
The limits to the inner city, the sweat-drenched mayor
Etching a sundial with a silver scimitar
Is all nerves: when does
The last citizen give up the yellow ghetto
So it's you, sadness, killing me
In Ben-Gurion Station, so it's you
In streets that bear the pain of love
That are dying in silence, Bahret Lut
The sea of death lays claim to my slotted copper coin
Grayhaired Chelana, Princess of Shechem

Now you are here
And the trout your children, the water
Parted at your painful knees
What will your eyes show, when the wind
Spreads its wing. A child's way
From knit-whites to the river ...
The pogroms had ended, your glance
Glowed emerald in the rubble basement, all sound
Down to a bat's breath and a clammy cobweb to keep
				             souls covered
The bird in your palm pecks a white
Cheese. Bread. I raise all that's left
From the ground
Vilna. The lindentrees no longer rustle. I'm still there
Yellowed fingers seal the lid.
In the eye. "Do not bend. Pictures enclosed." And when
She does come back, what will her eyes get to see ...
The last one. Worse for drink. Memory's charabanc, and the letter
Sled-runners logged in the snow
From February ...
And when does she come back?

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Marijus Pakštas was born in Vilnius, and has lived and worked in the United States since 1993, mainly as a free-lance linguist. His translation of Chesterton's selected essays was published in 1989, and his versions of Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald have appeared since. Apart from English, he has a working knowledge of Russian, Polish, Georgian and Persian, the last two acquired over a post-graduate term in Tbilisi, during a historically crucial period there, in 1989 and 1990. His interest in other cultures shows in the recurring flourish of foreign terms in the present poem.